With British royalty in the news so frequently of late, it seems only fitting to share Judy Moody and The Right Royal Tea Party, a brill new chapter book from Megan McDonald that is sure to get readers raring to look up their family trees. As always, this internationally best-selling series features the inimitable artwork of Peter H. Reynolds, bringing the plucky, sometimes stubborn and bossy, but always irresistible Judy Moody to life. Reynolds’ illustrations keep the story fresh and relatable from start to finish.

Judy Moody’s learning about family trees in Social Studies and teacher Mr. Todd wants everyone to research their lineage and report back. Lovable Grandma Lou’s got some interesting facts from her husband’s side of the family including one relative who died a hero on the Titanic and another who, family lore has it, goes back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I. In fact the name ‘Moody’ means brave and that long ago brave cousin might possibly have rescued someone from the Tower of London, the famous prison. Well that’s all Judy needed to hear to decide her ancestry’s tied to that of the current royal family, namely the Queen. It makes sense to Judy since she has a pen pal there already and her favorite color, purple, is the color of nobility. So no surprise that it doesn’t take long for Judy to imagine herself as Queen. She even writes a fab and funny letter to HRH with questions that are sure to crack up young readers. Here’s one of my favorite questions: Can you make someone bring you a snowball in the middle of summer? In true Judy Moody style, this young wanna-be royal creates a castle in her backyard and even digs a moat causing some royal run ins with her brother, recently dubbed Sir Short Shanks.

When visiting a nearby castle with her family, Judy and her younger brother, Stink, spy her frenemy Jessica Finch enjoying a tea party on the premises. Blimey! How could Jessica have all the fun and all the tea? Judy decides she’s going to throw a high tea party of her own, a right royal one. Only things go south quickly once Jessica Finch shares her family tree in class 3T and Judy’s seeing all shades of blue. Does she smell a rat or is she related to its keeper? Crikey! What’s a royal red-head to do? When no one shows up to her party, Judy’s dreams of queendom fade fast. Luckily a pinkie promise to keep a secret secure saves the day and Judy bounces back like any noble blooded royal would.

Filled with kid-friendly facts and puns galore, Judy Moody and The Right Royal Tea Party also includes lots of British English words and expressions explained in the back matter. It feels like McDonald had a terrific time writing the book because it reads so effortlessly and the humor flows from one fun scene to the next. Now that there’s going to be a royal birth this spring, kids will find this timely fourteenth book absotively posolutely the bees knees, no lie!

From the Newbery Honor award-winner and master storyteller Julius Lester comes his long-awaited picture book, The Girl Who Saved Yesterday. In this poetic myth, “when the people of the village sent the girl into the forest, it was the trees as ancient as breath who took her in and raised her.” The young girl, named Silence by the trees, is soon tasked with returning to her village to save all of the Yesterdays. Beyond this unusual instruction, the trees can give her no further detail.

The villagers feared that Silence would anger the mountain “which loomed like a memory no one could recall.” When Silence returned, the villagers watched her brave a mysterious night alone, where shafts of light from the mountain filled the sky and passed through her; the voices carried by the light were “all shrieking like bolts of lightning sharpened by hopelessness, and the very land shook as if it were sobbing.” The girl realizes she must return to the forgotten place and find her parents.

In this beautifully written book, Silence recognizes the sounds of an unloved heart. Determination takes her to the mountain’s top; there she discovers the source of sadness and understands how to end the illness which had befallen this land.

Lester’s poetic lines are complemented by Angel’s bright, expressive images that help young readers understand the heart of this story: you cannot have Today without Yesterday. Once the ancestors’ memories are found, the spirits “encircled the people of the village, holding them in an embrace as gentle as eternity.”